THE hunt for a new batch of Singapore Hawker Masters began yesterday with the humble mee rebus.

A simple dish of thick yellow noodles with tofu cubes, green chilli and a hard-boiled egg drenched in a flavourful spicy-sour gravy, it is one of six new hawker food categories in this year's search for Singapore's top hawkers.

The annual awards, jointly organised by The Straits Times and Lianhe Zaobao, are now into their fourth year.

Over the next few weeks, judges will sample dishes in five other categories – the dry and soup versions of fish ball noodles; cheng tng, a sweet dessert soup; rojak, a prawn paste salad; or luak, or fried oyster omelette and nasi briyani.Other categories over the years have included bak kut teh and chicken rice.

Judges will head to the top three stalls in each food category before deciding on the winners.

The awards aim to give deserving hawkers recognition to spur them on to maintain and improve food standards.

They will be presented at The Asian Masters gala dinner at Ocean Gallery, Resorts World Sentosa, on Nov 22. — The Straits Times / Asia News Network

A FIRE at a SingTel building in Bukit Panjang has led to mobile, television and phone outages across Singapore.

The Internet service provider wrote on its Twitter around 3.40pm yesterday that some fixed line voice, broadband and mobile services "may (be) affected", and that it was "working to restore service (as soon as possible)".

A spokesman for the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) said it had been alerted to the fire at 40 Woodlands Road at 2.16pm. The fire, which had been "inside the cable room at level one of the building", was extinguished within 20 minutes of the SCDF's arrival, she added. About 50 people had already evacuated prior to the SCDF's arrival. There were no reported injuries.

Housewife Maggie Goh said she discovered the problem around 4pm.

"My Internet and TV are all down, so I'm watching old movies (on DVD) right now. I was wondering why I was staring at a blank screen," said the 33-year-old. — The Straits Times / Asia News Network

A BANQUET operations manager who took to the wheel despite having been banned from the road for a year was called the "ultimate road terror'' by a district judge.

While driving under a year-long ban, Tan Yang Chin, 34, was involved in a hit-and-run accident along an expressway which resulted in a taxi overturning and injuring three people. The accident happened along East Coast Parkway (ECP) at 1.14am on Feb 7 this year.

Tan was jailed for 13 months and banned from driving for eight years after admitting to causing grievous hurt to taxi passenger Wang Jing, 28, a Chinese national; driving under a ban; and failing to render assistance.

A district court heard that Tan was speeding along ECP when he fell asleep and hit the centre divider. He woke up and veered his car towards the extreme left lane, and hit the back of Goh Chee Kwang's taxi. Goh, 51, was then taking Wang and another female passenger to the airport.

He lost control of the vehicle which then hit the road barrier and overturned.

Tan sped away from the scene and later left his car unattended about 1km away along ECP before Xilin Avenue.

Wang was taken to hospital for fractures to her pelvis. Both vehicles were badly damaged.

Calling him the "ultimate road terror'', District Judge Low Wee Ping said Tan had been fined and banned from driving for 12 months in April last year for drink-driving.

Two months before his disqualification ended, he drove at least four times.

Two charges of causing hurt to the taxi driver and the other passenger and failing to stop after the accident were considered during his sentencing. — The Straits Times / Asia News Network